Winning Cannes Recipe: `Cherries' And `eel'

Philosophical Treatises Share Top Prize Amid Celebrity Glitter

Jury Honors A Wide Range Of Cinematic Styles.

May 20, 1997|By JANET MASLIN The New York Times

CANNES, France — Having celebrated its 50th birthday with an inordinate show of celebrity glitter, the Cannes International Film Festival reasserted its claim to seriousness in awarding top honors Sunday to two quiet, pensive films. This year's Palme d'Or was shared by Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherries and Shohei Imamura's Unagi (The Eel).

Kiarostami's film consists almost entirely of conversations between a man contemplating suicide and strangers who, he hopes, can be persuaded to help him accomplish that end. Kiarostami's great accomplishment is in turning this spare, philosophical film into something much richer than any synopsis makes it sound.

Imamura, director of Vengeance Is Mine and The Ballad of Narayama, is a previous Palme d'Or winner. He brings a quirky, delicate tone to his account of a convicted killer who tries to rebuild his life, and whose dearest confidant is an eel in a tank.

Sean Penn was voted best actor for his boisterous, tender performance in She's So Lovely, a time-capsule revival of John Cassavetes' style as directed by Nick Cassavetes, the filmmaker's son. ``I love this country,'' Penn said, accepting his award at a ceremony in which a great many of France's most glamorous and estimable actresses participated. Presenters included Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant and Sandrine Bonnaire. Jeanne Moreau was the evening's host, and Isabelle Adjani, very much the model of haute elegance, was the jury president.

The jury (with members including Tim Burton, Michael Ondaatje, Paul Auster, Gong Li, Mike Leigh and Mira Sorvino) certainly made awards all over the stylistic map. The prize for direction went to Wong Kar-Wai (Chungking Express), whose nimble, flashy technique is shown off in Happy Together, about gay lovers from Hong Kong who wind up in Argentina.

In an entirely different universe is Western, directed with warm, laid-back wit by Manoel Poirier about two hapless buddies trying to meet women in western France. Adjani stiffened noticeably when the raffish-looking Poirier nervously kissed her cheek after he received the Jury Prize.

But Adjani beamed at Youssef Chahine, the Egyptian filmmaker who was voted a special 50th Anniversary prize (Cannes juries make up new awards whenever they care to) for his body of work. Chahine's Destiny is about bravely defying religious fundamentalists, and he received a large and dutiful ovation from the Cannes audience that would later see Clint Eastwood's Absolute Power, the festival's closing film. Audience response was so tepid that the applause had virtually stopped for Kathy Burke, voted best actress in Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth, by the time she reached the stage.

The award for best short film went to Tessa Sheridan for Is It the Design or Is It the Wrapper? Sheridan made one of the night's more memorable acceptance speeches. ``Unfortunately, I haven't rehearsed anything,'' she said, ``because I'm more scared than clever.''